The availability of Al Smith is glaring, indisputable, overwhelming. And yet he is unavailable. By the unspoken and unwritten law of the United States, as it stands today, he cannot be nominated by any national party.

One cannot say that the new urban civilization which is pushing Al Smith forward into national affairs is better or worse than the older American civilization of town and country which dreads him and will resist him. But one can say that they do not understand each other, and that neither has yet learned that to live it must let live. The conflict is an inevitable consequence of our history. It seems, however, to be the fate of this genial man to deepen that conflict and to hasten it, and to make us face the conflict sooner than we are ready. . . The Ku Kluxers may talk about the Pope to the lunatic fringe, but the main mass of opposition is governed by an instinct that to accept Al Smith is to certify and sanctify a way of life that does not belong to the America they love. Here is not trivial conflict.